The Online Shopping Thread

This is a discussion on The Online Shopping Thread within Gadgets, Computers & Software, part of the Shifting gears category; Amazon deliveries have been good for me during this festive season. Grabbed couple of products during their lightning deals and ...

Ohh, wish I'd known this before. That's what you get when you compare prices online only and not offline. Got it (Lumia 730) for 15k from Amazon with no extended warranty. Do you think you can get extended warranty from Nokia care after buying online? Though I don't think it makes much sense if you have to pay 1.5k for it.

Nokia care will offer you the warranty. For my first lumia, they convinced me to buy it at 1490 when I had gone there for a software update. At first I thought it was useless but I had previously had a bad experience with Sony where displays used to conk off randomly and I had to pay heavily for its replacement. Hence I took the extended warranty. I had to use it once when the Usb connector became loose and the phone wouldn't charge. At first they claimed it to be a damage but later I took it to a different Nokia care whom I convinced saying its a bad quality connector that caused the issue. They replaced the connector free of cost which otherwise would have cost me a considerable sum of money.

For the later Lumias purchased at home (720,730,925) we got extended warranty free.

For Bangaloreans, it's self-explanatory. The Actual Delivery Date was 27th October, 2014. Normally, I receive my Packages the next day or max. 2 days. Since, it was Festival Time - I assumed that it'll take about a Week. But even during Festival I've received my items within 2 days from Amazon Transportation Services & Bluedart. Fedex delayed by 5 days ( But this item had Originated in Haryana). In Total, it took about 15 days for Delivery instead of 10 days.

Now coming back to ARAMEX - This is the Second time in this month. Both are Local Delivery items. First time they delayed by 3 days (Total 10 days). And When I complained, they put up a lame & false reason, that the Courier Guy was not allowed inside the Building.

This is my Second Delivery from ARAMEX :- For others Who are not familiar with Bangalore, the Shipping Address & the Receiver Address are just about 10 kms. apart. Receiver's address is in the heart of the City of Bangalore. And as per the ARAMEX Website, the Package is moving on a snail's pace. And the Locations look like a Curve (Axis of Ring Road). Yes it is moving along the Ring Road, If you track the different locations mentioned by ARAMEX. From Whitefield to Indiranagar, which is about 5-6 kms distance, it has taken 4 days.

Even If I go by their locations, all these locations are just 5 kms. apart from each other. This should be like a Joke for the Courier Company. This time I've not complained and would like to see What will be their new Joke.

The Website shows, the item is out for Delivery, but till now it has not reached me. Let's hope it's delivered Today, then it'll be 7 days in total to deliver an item, where the Shipper & the Receiver are just 10 kms. apart.

Just now called Flipkart as I wanted to buy the TP-Link W8968 model and it was available at it's lowest price today, i.e. 1963/-

All I wanted to know was; whether it was the v3 model. Called twice, and the call was transferred to their sales team. After repeating all the details thrice, all I was told, the price had now increased to 2270/- + 100/- shipping -

I promptly asked him to !@#$ off and told him that I would buy from Amazon even if it costs the same or more.

The major reason why I got irritated with them - I told the customer care executive clearly that while you transfer my call the price would go up, but he didn't listen and didn't provide me with the required information as well.

The major reason why I got irritated with them - I told the customer care executive clearly that while you transfer my call the price would go up, but he didn't listen and didn't provide me with the required information as well.

Within 2 minutes the price went up by 500/-

Really curious to know on why the price would go up when they keep transferring the calls ? Is it because they feel there is a customer interested in buying this, and if that's true, their systems and people/process work so fast to update the price of an item in a jiffy?

This is why I am skeptical about on some of the tactics of e-commerce sites in India. What happened in those 2 minutes that the price was raised by Rs 500? Did the market change? Or did the production cost increase? Is this sound & long-term business practice to reduce & hike price at the fancy of the seller?

Really curious to know on why the price would go up when they keep transferring the calls ? Is it because they feel there is a customer interested in buying this, and if that's true, their systems and people/process work so fast to update the price of an item in a jiffy?

From the screenshot it can be seen that the seller at that price was 'WS Retail'. It could be that the stocks got over for WS Retail and the next seller was selling at Rs 500 more and hence the price change. If the seller remained the same, then it can be inferred that there really had been a price hike in that 2 minutes while the call was being transferred.

I just read the CCI order. From the facts the CCI has relied on it seems that the seller on the marketplace did not source the products from Sandisk's India distributors. That would, in effect amount to parallel imports which is anyway a no-no for any form of after-sales service. As such the order has not said anything new insofar as any retail seller of a product in India is obliged to source the same from authorised national distributors.

The situation with Flipkart/Amazon is slightly different. There the sellers may well have lawfully originated the products but are able to sell it below MRP for various reasons (less overheads, more efficiency in ops, etc.) -- and this has diverted sales from the B&M shops. Such a practice is not and cannot be barred by contract -- it would amount to price-fixing which is very much illegal. Under the circumstances a diktat by say ABC Tyres to deny after sales warranty support to a product sourced legitimately from an authorised distributor but sold online by the retailer seems likely to attract action from the CCI if brought to its notice.

Earlier, I had posted about an order from Amazon that I placed on the 9th of October, was supposed to be delivered on 13th of October. But as of the 28th, there was still no sign of the package.

During this time, I contacted Customer Service numerous times, all I got was, delivery will take another 2-5 days. Delay is due to "in-transit delay". Finally, yesterday, they gave me a refund of the amount I had paid.

Today, they gave me a Rs.200 gift card as some sort of compensation for the delay.

So, I ordered some wall stickers for my kid's room from EBay.
Saw that the seller rating was very good and deciced to pay upfront instead of COD.

After a week, the product is not yet shipped. And the excuse given by the seller is ridiculously crap !!

If I Cancel the order, the refund money would be stuck with EBay for another week or so. I could rather wait for that long and hopefully get the product delivered by then.
So I am waiting hopelessly, sending a reminder to the seller each day.

I am sending a new reminder to the seller and asking them to send the product via FedEx or any reputed courier rather than waiting for Blue Dart.

Sad part is, the Blue Dart warehouse is just 200 mts from my residence. If I see that a particular consignment has arrived, I normally pick it up from their warehouse directly while going for my errands.

Paid on 22nd October:

Seller says - Blue Dart has heavy backlogs and hence they are not able to pick up the consignment from the seller !! WTH !!

Ohh well, to avoid cancellation of an order, the seller now says that the order was already handed over to Blue Dart and it is now Blue Dart who is delaying creation of AWB and shipping out the consignment.
Unbelievable, because the seller should have signed receipt when handing over the parcel to the courier pick up guy.

This seller shall surely get a terribly negative rating from me.

Doing dillydally with a customer is the last thing that a seller can do, be it Ebay or wherever.

Snapdeal offered replacement/refund based on my choice. They arranged for return pickup .However by luck i checked the fuse and one of the fuse was blown . I replaced same and it is working fine now so i asked the pick up guy to go empty handed , however i am clear now JBL/Harman will not honor warranty on any product bought (including Snapdeal etc ) online except from there own e-shop or authorized retailer .I think Govt of India needs to frame laws here as the product i bought has Sahil International , Harman India Bangalore office all over it so i am not sure why JBL refuses to honor warranty.